Happy New Year

Working on your New Year’s resolutions? I’ve decided to give up resolutions once and for all. I think the one-day-at-a-time approach to changing my bad habits works best for me.

Take food. (Please! After Christmas the hostess is always the one left with half of the five-pound box of fudge, the uneaten Christmas cookies, the leftover cheesy potatoes, and the various bits of wrapped candy that the kids dropped and the dog hasn’t yet found.) I can follow a healthy diet if I don’t have food in the house, except for disgustingly good-for-you breakfast cereal, skim milk, yogurt, cheese, and some lettuce. My goal is always to be able to see the back wall of the refrigerator.

Once the holidays arrive, and the fridge fills up to overflowing, all bets are off. I’m just an eating machine. We laughed back when my baby granddaughter, at the table as we dined on trout John had caught, kept up a constant demand for “more chicken!”

I know where she gets it. I had to restrain myself on Christmas Eve at my brother- and sister-in-law’s house. I wanted to yell, “More of those little pastry things with the chicken salad! And a few more meatballs! Don’t forget the little cocktail weenies! Hey, where’d you get that frosted sugar cookie?” Lucky for me I don’t talk with my mouth full, or I could have embarrassed myself horribly.

Maybe I’ll take up gymnastics. I could be in the same class with my granddaughters. Lori gave Peyton and Andie flashy gymnastics leotards with skimpy little shorts for Christmas. Three-year-old Harry, seeing the girls in their new get-ups, began to cry, “I want a gymnastics outfit! I want a leotard!” In his defense, it was at the end of a long and exciting day.

His parents are sensitive to not pigeonholing little boys and girls in gender stereotypes, but somehow they couldn’t wrap their imaginations around Harry in a gold lam leotard and hip-hugger shorts. We just all went home to bed and had a good night’s sleep. There was no mention of gymnastics in the morning. The hook and ladder truck seemed to help assuage any feelings of being left out.

I wish you all good luck with your resolutions (especially if you are going to quit smoking). I also wish you a Happy, Healthy, Hopeful, and Bright New Year from me, my family, and the Winona Post family. See you next year!